Review: I don’t know why but all book or series endings leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Maybe I hate endings, or maybe I don’t like how the author decided to end their story — either way, I am never happy to read the last page.

The Other Wind, the sixth book of the Earthsea cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin, and so far the last one confirmed, was not what I expected as a conclusion of the story. It started promising with a bit of mystery and new, diverse characters (something that has been missing for me in the previous books) and then when they all got together their personalities more or less disappeared and it was hard to tell them apart. I don’t say that juggling a big cast of characters is easy, oh no, but I’ve read many books where it is done marvelously. And here, well, it was OK.

Review: Tales From Earthsea is a collection of short stories from the world of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin that take place before, during and after the events in the original storyline. It consists of five short stories – The Finder, Darkrose and Diamond, The bones of the Earth, On the High March and Dragonfly.

Personally, I am not a big fan of short stories. I simply do not believe they are able to convey a full, meaningful plot and allow for natural character development. But when I like series I always get excited when I get extra bits to go with the story – that being a scene from another person’s POV, a satisfying spin-off of a particular storyline that had been neglected or forgotten in the main story or simple fairy-tales/ar

Review: It’s amazing how fast I am going through books these days. I’m not sure if it is this specific series that make it so easy or I am just in my element 😀

Tehanu, the fourth book of the Earthsea cycle by Ursula Le Guin, is the last book of the original series. As such I expected it all to tie neatly together with a bow on top. I do love stories which give us more answers than questions at the end. And in a way, Tehanu did feel like an ending — but also as a beginning. I’ll explain in a minute.

Review: As you can see, I am still going strong with the Ursula Le Guin‘s wave and I even think I’ll be able to finish all her works (that I have) in no time. I did notice, however, that the more I read the more I realize that just good prose is not enough. When I started with the first two books, A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan, I thought that their plot would be connected in some way. It turns out that the only connection so far is the wizard Ged who features in each of them. In the third book, The Farthest Shore, the story follows the steps of Ged years after the events in book 2

Review: Ah, true old-school fantasy feels like home <3 I used to avoid reading in the fantasy genre out of fear that it would influence my writing and ideas but as many, much better writers have said, writers must read. So I think this book marks my return to what inspired me to read and write. A Wizard of Earthsea is the first book of the series by Ursula K. Le Guin, one of the very first big fantasy writers (and a woman at that). I got the books from my mom who first bought and read them shortly after giving birth to me (or was that The Wheel of Time? Can’t remember). So when we talk about the series calling it old-time fantasy is really accurate.

Currently Reading

Random Quote

“You can’t give up. You can’t ever give up. If you give up you might as well be dead.”